After roaming with Scourge in WvW (post-nerf)

[Tzozef.9841]

It's not that bad.

My playstyle has completely shifted though, there are two techniques I used before the nerf which I used, which are now unfavorable.

The pincer /Kamikaze technique.

The pincer/kamikaze technique is when I use my sand shade on an enemy and run towards the enemy to stack both condi pulses from myself, and from my sand shade to condi-bomb the damage.

Now I can't do that because the Sand Shade skills F2-F5 don't stack anymore. So my playstyle when from stacking Shades and myself in a huddle, from that, and NOW into spreading everything out and controlling the movement of my enemy, which is difficult, takes getting used to, but still very viable.

I feel more like a football coach making plays controlling the movement of my enemies, rather than an army general sending all my pilots to kamikaze themselves into the enemy.

More like chess, and less like GTA San Andreas.

I wanted to bring some light and hope in lieu from all the PvE fiasco, which I think Anet made a huge mistake and misstep making Necros nearly unable to participate from high-end/PvE content JUST BECAUSE they spent 2 YEARS creating a new elite spec without properly testing it and somehow doing things it's UNINTENDED to do, only to remove it and wait several months later to fix it while being BENCHED in the meantime. It's silly guys.

Back on topic, the point is, in WvW, Scourge is still FUN. That's what counts. It's not an atomic bomb anymore, but it's still damn fun. What I like is I can't wreck zergs by myself, and I don't invalidate downed state anymore. It's possible to rez your allies now and not nearly impossible, but now at least feasible.

With that said, after the nerfs, weaknesses that were apparent before are now GLARING after the down-tune. Getting kited is a real problem, especially against rangers, as a necro there is NO SPEC it has against kiting effectively, Necro no matter what spec is weak against kiters. Because it's mostly a damage potential nerf, it's way easier for anything kiting me to mitigate the damage and continue. Again this is not a complaint, the fights are still winnable, just an observation. (I guess it's a similar weakness to Revenants against condition damage, echoing what a Dev once said)

The bright side is guys, whether in PvP, WvW, or PvE/Raids. Scourge (Necro) will only get buffed from here on out. My suggestion for devs is to combine some traits together and add new ones to bring the POWAAH back in PvE, but also make it's defensive choices count i.e. MAKE BARRIER MATTER and/or effective. Right now it acts more like a bandaid that doesn't stick properly.

Otherwise, wanted to bring some optimism to the thread, if even it's just a little and only a singular experience :)

I made a similar thread before about running Power Reaper through WvW in a similar vein, guess I'm just that Necro with a healthy dose of optimism xD

[EremiteAngel.9765]

The bright side is guys, whether in PvP, WvW, or PvE/Raids. Scourge (Necro) will only get buffed from here on out.

Buff 5%.Uproar from non-necro players that Scourge is now OP again.Nerf 10%. :/

[Tzozef.9841]

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:

The bright side is guys, whether in PvP, WvW, or PvE/Raids. Scourge (Necro) will only get buffed from here on out.

Buff 5%.Uproar from non-necro players that Scourge is now OP again.Nerf 10%. :/

We should just get a new elite spec and call it Hamlet.

Because... you know... Tragedy.

[Anzriel.1398]

@Tzozef.9841 said:

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:

The bright side is guys, whether in PvP, WvW, or PvE/Raids. Scourge (Necro) will only get buffed from here on out.

Buff 5%.Uproar from non-necro players that Scourge is now OP again.Nerf 10%. :/

We should just get a new elite spec and call it Hamlet.

Because... you know... Tragedy.

Or we can just call it Piglet, since it'll be as useless as all of our other traitlines.

[Zero.3871]

WRONG! the next balance patch reduce all barrier to 50% of its current value. why? because we have SOOOOO massive support from 2k barrier cast against 12 k hits from warrior...

[Zoltreez.6435]

@Tzozef.9841 said:The bright side is guys, whether in PvP, WvW, or PvE/Raids. Scourge (Necro) will only get buffed from here on out.

This is what im telling myself since the release of the game as a Necro...Still not happened.....

[Atticus.7194]

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:

The bright side is guys, whether in PvP, WvW, or PvE/Raids. Scourge (Necro) will only get buffed from here on out.

Buff 5%.Uproar from non-necro players that Scourge is now OP again.Nerf 10%. :/

Same thing as always, nerf by 33%, buff by 5% maaaaaybe, claim anyone who isn't happy is ungrateful and we could have been given nothing. Watch your class decay into nothing for the next few years, this is literally exactly what happened to Reaper and it's happened to Scourge.

[Nightshade.2570]

I raided last night on Scourge, I did notice a big DPS drop for all scourges as I run the ARC DPS that is approved by Anet to watch the change. We have definitely all suffered a downspike. Most of the time the tops of my list were Firebrands, who are supporting and damaging with burn like we used to, Spellbreakers and Weavers. The Engi is a bit to squishy for group fights though a few people make it work it probably would normally be top DPS.

Scourges have a glaring hole in survivability and the ability to keep up with the natural support that Firebrands give out. Though nerfing Firebrand is not what I want I want us to be brought up to thier level in aspects of support. Then our damage just needs maybe a minor tweak. The biggest issue is our Barrier, for an ability that is the big selling point here it hasn't sold. It is to fast of a degen and is now even more difficult to give out. Its not optimal to pick this support line at all still and it wouldnt protect me from other classes anyhow. It's not a block to projectiles or something nice like that...

[Zoltreez.6435]

@Atticus.7194 said:

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:

The bright side is guys, whether in PvP, WvW, or PvE/Raids. Scourge (Necro) will only get buffed from here on out.

Buff 5%.Uproar from non-necro players that Scourge is now OP again.Nerf 10%. :/

Same thing as always, nerf by 33%, buff by 5% maaaaaybe, claim anyone who isn't happy is ungrateful and we could have been given nothing. Watch your class decay into nothing for the next few years, this is literally exactly what happened to Reaper and it's happened to Scourge.

im still waiting for those Power reaper buffs/changes....

maaaaan its good to be a necro....

[Rudra.6932]

As a scourge and reaper roamer myself, positioning has become more important than ever since the damage from Dhuumfire has almost become irrelevant. Fighting in open field is a mistake and more often than not calls for punishment (since I tend to pick fights near enemy spawns so the fights can last longer). It is even more important now, that I use choke points to push as much damage on multiple targets as I can. I would agree that it has become harder to roam in outnumbered scenarios now than before patch, but it is not terrible. Dropping the elite on downed bodies is a good way to make sure they dont get rez-ed but other than that there is not much of downed pressure anymore. The only other thing that can stop hard rez is CC like staff or torch #5 and corrupting stability to fear.

I understand the validity of the fixes that they did to sand shade behaviour and I agree with them, but I also believe, that there should be a way to compensate some of that lost dps, through future balance changes. I made some suggestions on another thread about how the support and dps of scourge can be enhanced by making Sand Savant baseline and making adjustment to some of the traits to give more meaning to barrier and providing sand shade buffs to allies.

Despite being severely weakened after the Halloween patch, I still get a lot of angry whispers (surprisingly and ironically even from Spellbreakers some times) about how broken scourge is, so there is that.